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Today's Opinions

In the twilight years of my life, I have discovered the competitive sport of truck pullin’.

My son and grandson bought a pulling truck, and they have spent hours working on it, getting it ready to pull. Their first pull was in Cloverdale, Ind., and when they went, I packed my bag and headed for Indiana. I have been to two pulls now, found the fans to be enthusiastic, courteous and of all ages. I was pleased to find out how many Owen countians were involved with this sport, and how good they were.

Late last month, Gov. Steve Beshear announced he will call the General Assembly back into session to tackle what is one of the most underappreciated stories in several years.

While George Bush and Barack Obama were handing out billions and billions of dollars in bank bailouts and economic stimulus packages, somewhere along the way we apparently lost track of exactly how much money we are talking about.

Kentucky is facing a nearly $1 billion shortfall for the next fiscal year.

Today, as we begin to look toward the year 2010 and the May Primary Election, it is clear we must continue to improve the management of voter registrations. The State Board of Elections has reported that they have mailed 441,000 voter postcards in the state of Kentucky, and 142,000 were returned as undeliverable. In most situations, the correct address of the voter is not available. These postcards have been returned to the State Board of Elections and the board, in return has mailed the cards to the County Clerk’s Office in the county where the voter was last registered.

William Faulkner wrote that. I’m not sure I know what the line means. Faulkner’s mind was complex and his words nuanced and layered. But he was born in Mississippi in 1897 where the Civil War could break loose at the turn of a prepositional phrase over supper most any night of the week. And I was born in Owen County, Kentucky, where we identify the names of fields on our farm by the names of men a century dead.

For the most part, I have been one of those people who sees the main significance of Memorial Day as being the start of summer.

For me and a lot of others, whether or not they would admit it publicly, Memorial Day has been little more than a nice three-day weekend – a good time to sleep in late, get outdoors, grill some brats and maybe have a family reunion or go for a swim.

I know the history of Memorial Day. Somewhere, squirreled back in the file cabinet of my brain, I recall hearing people call it Decoration Day.

As I was driving to Frankfort one Sunday afternoon, May 17, I saw two groups of dedicated people picking up trash on the side of the road.

I would like to say a huge thank-you to those people for caring enough to take the time to help make our country a better place for everyone. I’m sure that they were not the ones who put the trash there, but yet they took the time to clean it up.

My book club was planning to read Barbara Kingsolver’s new book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” – the one about eating locally grown foods exclusively and only those in season – and so the discussion leader turns to me, and says, “And so Georgia, why don’t you make Kingsolver’s ‘Month of May’ recipe for Rhubarb Crisp on page 89 for our refreshments next month.”